Tbilisi Zoo
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The Zoological Garden Tbilisi ( Georgian : თბილისის ზოოლოგიური პარკი , Tbilisi soologiuri parki ) is the oldest and largest animal park in the Caucasus republic of Georgia . Founded in 1927, it is located in the Were River Valley in Tbilisi city center .
The zoo is subordinate to the City Hall of Tbilisi and is largely dependent on financial resources from the city budget. On June 14, 2015, flooding caused severe damage to the zoo, with many animals perishing or breaking out of their enclosures and escaping into the streets of Tbilisi. Before that, the zoo covered an area of around 120 hectares and was home to around 300 species, including 50 species of mammals, 40 species of birds and several dozen species of reptiles, amphibians and fish, which come from both the Caucasus and other regions of the world. The zoo also offered around 30 different attractions, including a climbing garden, a laughing room and a Ferris wheel.
history
The zoo was founded on February 10, 1927 by decision of the city council. It was designed by Georgian and Russian specialists, including Pëtr Alexandrowitsch Zoege von Manteuffel, the then director of the Moscow Zoo , and expanded in the 1930s. In 1931 a parasitological laboratory and a zoological museum were opened and successful crossbreeding experiments between different animals were carried out, including between horse and zebra and between goat and East Caucasian ibex . An attempt at crossbreeding between peacock and turkey turned out to be a failure. The first zoo guide was published in 1936. In 1938, the zoo acquired several exotic animals from the Moscow zoo, including its first elephant, emus, rheas, chimpanzees, various species of parrots, black swans, and golden and silver pheasants. In the city, posters advertised the zoo, which now regularly received new animals.
In its heyday in the 1970s, the zoo housed over 1,000 animals and was visited by more than 500,000 people a year. In the 1990s, the zoo, which was largely dependent on dwindling grants from the city budget, fell into disrepair as a result of an economic collapse and political unrest in post-Soviet Georgia. Neil Trent, a representative for the World Society for the Protection of Animals , reported in 1993 that more than half of the animals had died of cold or starvation since 1991. Some of the dead animals were fed to the survivors.
The zoo experienced a boom in the 2000s when the marine aquarium, the first of its kind in the Caucasus, opened in 2007. In 2012 the city council decided to build a new zoo and recreation complex next to Lake Tbilisi , a large reservoir on the eastern outskirts of Tbilisi. The Australian architects Hassell presented a design for the new building of a modern zoo, which should include an entrance center, a boulevard , a second center with a children's playground and café, an indoor zoo and a larger outdoor zoo. However, due to a lack of money, the project was not implemented and the zoo remained at its old location.
On June 14, 2015, a storm caused severe flooding in the city, killing at least 19 people. The zoo in particular suffered massive destruction. Dozens of predators including bears, tigers, lions, wolves and a crocodile were able to break out of their enclosures and escape into the streets of Tbilisi. Security forces hunted the animals. Eight lions and seven tigers drowned or were shot; other animals, including a runaway hippopotamus, were stunned and recaptured. In total, the zoo lost around 281 of its animals and three of its employees.
On June 15, 2015, zoo director Zurab Gurielidze and animal welfare organizations made serious accusations against the security forces and criticized the shooting of the predators as being too premature. The Zoo Prague and other Czech zoos sent a team of qualified nurses to Tbilisi who had experienced in 2002 and 2013 floods in Prague. Miroslav Bobek , Director of the Prague Zoo and President of UCSZOO (Union of Czech and Slovak Zoological Gardens), initiated a public collection to financially support the rebuilding of the zoo.
On June 17, 2015, a runaway white tiger was shot after killing a man on the premises of a Tbilisi hardware store. A penguin, believed to be lost, was spotted in the Kura on the border with Azerbaijan.
The zoo was reopened in September 2015. In August 2016, the zoo announced the rare birth of three white lions.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b თბილისის ზოოპარკი: ჩვენს შესახებ (de: About the Zoo) ( Georgian ) Tbilisi Zoo. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
- ↑ Alexis Rowell: In Tbilisi Zoo, Mass Starvation . In: The Moscow Times , December 8, 1993. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
- ↑ Landscape Institute: HASSELL to design concept for Tbilisi Zoo . July 4, 2012. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
- ^ Tbilisi Flood Fiasco: Who's to Blame? . In: Georgia Today , June 14, 2015. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
- ↑ Zoo animals that have escaped make Tbilisi unsafe . In: ZEIT-Online , June 14, 2015. Accessed June 15, 2015.
- ↑ Hippopotamus on loose in Tbilisi shot with tranquilliser - but tigers, lions and wolves still free . In: The Telegraph , June 14, 2015. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
- ↑ Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili: Search continues for 10 people, dangerous zoo animals still missing in Georgia flood . In: The Global and Mail , June 15, 2015.
- ^ Georgian capital flood: 12 killed, zoo animals escape, several shot dead . In: Reuters , June 14, 2015. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
- ↑ Flood in Tbilisi: Runaway zoo tiger kills man . In: Spiegel-Online , June 17, 2015.
- ↑ Three months after the storm, the Tbilisi Zoo reopened . In: RP-Online , September 13, 2015. Accessed February 6, 2017.
- ↑ Three white lion cubs born in the Tbilisi Zoo . In: Welt-Online , August 5, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2017.
Coordinates: 41 ° 42 ′ 46.8 " N , 44 ° 46 ′ 37.2" E